Reneging

Former Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas chastised the press Friday, saying President-elect Bill Clinton shouldn't be criticized for backtracking on campaign promises. ''I would like to say very strongly Bill Clinton should change whatever campaign pledges he must to get this economy going,'' Tsongas said in a speech to the Northeastern Retail Lumber Association. The speech was Tsongas' first since he was diagnosed in November with a relapse of cancer. Tsongas, 51, has large-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Vacationers who narrowly escaped the sinkhole collapse of villas at the Summer Bay Resort near Walt Disney World say the time-share company is reneging on promises to reimburse them for losses of thousands of dollars in personal property. "They told us they'd make us whole," said Maggie Ghamry, who fled the crumbling condominium Aug. 11 with a friend, three toddlers and little more than the swimsuits they were wearing. "This isn't making us whole. " Ghamry, a graphic designer and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitor from Gainesville, Va., received a letter Monday signed by Summer Bay CEO and President Paul Caldwell indicating the company will not pay for personal-property losses, despite a public pledge to do so. "It's definitely blind-sided us," said Ghamry, who received $1,400 from Summer Bay but listed sinkhole losses in electronics, designer bags and clothing totaling $10,000, including a camera and lenses; a laptop computer; two iPads; and Coach and Louis Vuitton handbags.

The last living leader of the Medellin drug cartel has accused the United States of reneging on an agreement to release him from prison and send him to Germany in exchange for his testimony against former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Carlos Lehder said the U.S. government had denied making any deal with him and had refused to comply with the supposed conditions. Lehder testified in the Noriega trial about the Panamanian leader's involvement in drug trafficking, leading to speculation that he had struck a deal with the U.S. government to be released early from prison.

Chris Elliott -- The Travel Troubleshooter and The Travel Troubleshooter, October 19, 2011

Q: I booked a vacation package for three people to Hawaii through Priceline. The package cost $3,208 and included my flight, hotel and car. After making the reservation, I noticed a typographical error on one of the passengers names and seeing that I couldn't change this online, I called a customer representative. I was told that the ticket would be canceled and I was asked if I preferred to recreate the whole order or just part of it. I responded that it would probably be better for me to just recreate the whole order online, which I did. This time, the total came to $3,213.

STATE OF EMERGENCY. Anti-apartheid activists on Tuesday accused the government of reneging on a promise to release a substantial number of detainees as South Africa marked its 1,000th day under a state of emergency. ''We challenge the government to lift the state of emergency, because even that has failed to break the resistance of the people,'' said Mohammed Valli. He is a former detainee and a spokesman for the banned United Democratic Front, the country's largest anti-apartheid coalition.

TOKYO -- North Korean diplomats on Tuesday rejected a Japanese demand to stop developing nuclear weapons, a condition for receiving badly needed economic aid. North Korea also accused Japan of reneging on its pledge to return five Japanese citizens who are visiting Japan for the first time since North Korean agents abducted them nearly 25 years ago. The Japanese told the North Koreans it was reasonable to permit the abducted citizens to stay in Japan, because...

UPTIGHT INDIANS. A former Miskito Indian rebel leader has accused the leftist government of reneging on a peace pact and has refused to rule out a return to battle unless the Sandinistas make good on their promises. A year ago Uriel Vanegas and 400 of his soldiers ended their war against the government in an agreement that allowed the rebels to keep their U.S.-supplied arms. But the Sandinistas have tried to disarm his soldiers and have not provided economic aid. ''There is a lot of mistrust,'' Vanegas said.

President Clinton, who has vowed to dismantle the arsenal of big-money politics, helped raise more than $3 million for Democratic causes Wednesday night. In a rousing speech before a black-tie fund-raising gala that attracted more than 2,000 donors paying $1,500 each, Clinton warned of the corrosive effects of cynicism in society. He touched on the achievements of his first 18 months in office but did not directly mention the fund-raising issue, which brought protesters from Common Cause to the streets near the hotel.

A FEDERAL agency's order that Florida Power & Light allow access to its power lines may not mean an end to a lawsuit by the Orlando-based municipal coalition seeking the connection. ''It's too early to tell,'' said Mark McCain, a spokesman for Florida Municipal Power Agency. Access to the power lines at affordable rates is the key issue in the suit and Wednesday's vote by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But the suit, pending in U.S. District Court in Orlando, has an additional element: a demand for at least $140 million in damages.

WHAT'S THIS? A certifiable basketball hotshot in Indiana possibly reneging on an oral commitment to Bob Knight's Hoosiers? Damon Bailey, who committed to Indiana University last spring, said he may not sign with IU during the early signing period in November. But be still, beating Hoosier hearts: Bailey, a senior-to-be at Bedford North Lawrence High, said he still likely will play for Indiana. Bailey: ''I don't really know if I'll sign early with IU, because of the coaching instability, because Coach Knight could quit at any time.

Q: When my wife was laid off a year ago, she was told she'd be rehired if and when the economy got better. She was a veteran employee, and before she left she had to train a part-timer to do some of her work. My wife is still unemployed, and that part-timer now has been asked to fill my wife's full-time position. Is there any legal recourse to the company's reneging on its (unwritten) promise? D.T., Orange County A: It is possible your wife may have recourse through common law claims such as breach of an oral contract or misrepresentation.

All you gay folks out there, gather up your loved ones and bring 'em down to the courthouse -- 'cause it's marrying time! Same thing for all you farmers still itching to mistreat pregnant pigs. Bring on the bacon! Because apparently we're not abiding by the constitution here in Florida anymore. The issue is schools, which Tallahassee politicians have long treated a lot like a hemorrhoid -- an annoyance they were forced to address more than anything they actually cared about. And the latest news has them unsure whether they have the money to fulfill the class-size promises voters put into the constitution back in 2002.

DeLand football standout Mike Gillislee pulled back his summer oral commitment to Florida on Thursday and is considering other colleges, including Clemson and UCF. The Knights had two assistant coaches on campus at DeLand this week. According to Kevin Pettis, Gillislee's high school coach, the running back will visit UCF this weekend, Clemson the weekend of Jan. 16 and UF on Jan. 23. "He's still going to take that Florida visit, but he wants to look at a couple of other schools," Pettis said.

The NFL is accusing the operators of two South Beach hotels of reneging on a deal to supply more than 50 rooms during the first week of February for the Super Bowl in Miami, according to court documents. The operators of the South Beach Hotel and the Crest Hotel, however, deny that they signed a contract to reserve 54 rooms between the two hotels for four nights during the week of the Super Bowl, as the league claimed Friday in its filing for a dispute resolution with the American Arbitration Association.

Was there a handshake deal or not? That burning question is at the center of a lawsuit in Orlando's federal court between a well-known New York modeling agency and local entertainment executive Lou Pearlman. Dieter Esch, the co-owner and former chairman of Wilhelmina International Ltd., based in New York, testified Monday that he questioned the financial strength of Pearlman's modeling- and talent-scout subsidiaries, so he asked for a personal assurance from the boy-band impresario before permitting those Orlando companies to use Wilhelmina's name in March 2003.

The public-school system is a social contract; a pledge by our society that it will provide a quality basic education to all its children. School vouchers renege on that pledge. The best private schools have rigid academic requirements. If your child is from a failing school, chances are he or she is not prepared to meet these requirements. Should the private school be required to lower its standards for voucher students? In situations in which there are more applicants than vouchers, who then decides who gets the vouchers and who doesn't?

IT APPEARS a lawsuit brought against Florida Power & Light Co. by an Orlando-based coalition of cities and small municipal utilities is still on track. The case is tentatively set to be heard in U.S. District Court during the session that begins Jan. 10 by visiting federal Judge Robert Merhige. The Florida Municipal Power Agency charges FPL with reneging on an agreement to open its major transmission lines to the coalition. Everything seemed to fall in order when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently ordered FPL to open its lines.

Ever since Bill Clinton was elected president, we've noticed a change in the Arkansas governor.No, we're not talking about Mr. Clinton's reneging on campaign promises, though that seems to be happening.We're talking about the next president's hair. There has been a decided darkening of his hair since his election.At first, there were just a few flecks of gray intertwined with Mr. Clinton's overwhelmingly silver hair. But in the past few weeks, Mr. Clinton's hair has seemed to be fluctuating between a darkening gray and a brownish gray.

SAN'A, Yemen -- A deal for the release of a kidnapped former German diplomat and his family has fallen through after tribesmen who abducted the group backed out of the agreement, a Yemeni official said today. The hostages were being driven to the mountaintop negotiating site in the Rafadh district of Shabwa province in eastern Yemen, where the abduction occurred, when the deal fell apart, said the provincial deputy governor, Nasser Ba'oum. The agreement had called for Yemeni negotiators to exchange themselves for the hostages.

QB Jevan Snead of Stephenville (Texas) High, who orally committed to Florida in May, announced Sunday he now is committed to Texas. "I'm a Texas boy, born and raised, and feel that I owe it to my family, my friends and all of the great fans in the state of Texas to stay here," Snead said in a statement that appeared on the Web site orangebloods.com Snead (6 feet 3/205 pounds) had been UF's only quarterback commitment. The Gators remain strongly in the hunt for QB Tim Tebow (6-3./225), who runs a spread offense at Ponte Vedra Beach Nease.